Voices

Universal / Republic;
2014

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Though the expediency of the internet has condensed the measure of instant success from “overnight sensation” to “mid-afternoon phenom,” Phantogram offer a case study that slow-and-steady can still win the occasional race. Theirs is the sort of popularity that’s easy to overlook: the New York duo’s 2010 debut full-length for Barsuk, Eyelid Movies, quietly seeped out into a post-chillwave marketplace overrun with atmospheric synth-pop acts, and yet here they are four years later headlining 3,000-cap venues like New York’s Terminal 5 and the Hollywood Palladium. Sure, a few surprise collaborations with the likes of Big Boi and the Flaming Lips may have helped raised their stock in the interim, but, without the benefit of a runway breakout single or viral video, their exponential audience expansion appears to be more a product of old-fashioned word-of-mouth than click-of-mouse.

That said, you could be forgiven for not noticing Phantogram’s ascent because their music likewise rarely calls attention to itself. Upon forming Phantogram, Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter famously dubbed their dream-pop/hip-hop fusion “street beat,” and while it was likely meant to connote their music’s gritty edges and nocturnal ambience, the label also anticipated how easily Phantogram’s songs would be absorbed into the soundtrack of our day-to-day lives. From Urban Outfitters in-store playlists to prime placements on teen TV dramas, Phantogram have achieved a sort-of unobtrusive ubiquity that's made them the new frontrunners of background music.

But on their second full-length, Phantogram look to graduate from the subliminal to the substantial. Voices is the band’s first offering under their new deal with Republic/Universal, and in sharp contrast to the Bon Iver-esque log-cabin origin myth surrounding Eyelid Movies, this one was recorded in L.A. with M.I.A./Santigold producer John Hill. While such a transition for an indie-reared act may not carry the same significance as it would have 20 years ago, Voices is nonetheless a quintessential, 1990s-style major-label debut: more heavy-handed and more expensive-sounding, and also exceedingly self-aware of its mission to deliver the goods at this crucial juncture in the band’s career. As a result, the more playful spirit introduced on 2011’s stopgap Nightlife EP (and its stellar single “Don’t Move”) has been all but extinguished; in its place is a band that’s more serious and driven, but also more stiff.

Though Phantogram now employ a drummer in concerts, the beats here are locked into precise, mechanistic, unwaveringly mid-tempo patterns. So it often falls on Barthel to raise the temperature and quicken the pulse. As we witnessed in her hair-pulling onstage cameos with the Flaming Lips last year, she’s not afraid to place herself in a vulnerable position in service of a song, and on Voices' most immediately arresting tracks—in particular, the back-to-back, arena-rattling R&B bangers “Black Out Days” and “Fall in Love”—she invests her performances with a heightened sense of desperation that feels raw and real. Likewise, her wistful turn on “Bill Murray” serves as the album’s emotional center; though it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the iconic actor, the song's soft-focus synth washes and hazy-headed romantic longing would be right at home on the Lost in Translation soundtrack.

As the album title suggests, the songs on Voices are united by themes of inner turmoil and psychosis, but the yearning intensity isn’t always there to back them up. “Howling at the Moon” squanders a tough clanging groove on a tame, buzzkill chorus that undermines the feral desire expressed within; on the skittering, Massive Attack-like “Bad Dreams”, Barthel sums up her mental state by shouting out the title of Buñuel and Dali'sUn Chien Andalou, but the effect is decidedly less convincing than Black Francis’ invocation of the same. And though Phantogram favor an alchemical approach to music-making, Barthel and Carter remain oddly discrete personalities, avoiding the sort of he-said/she-said interaction that could lend their music more tension. Barthel may handle 80 percent of Phantogram’s vocals and command 99 percent of the attention, but Carter is still trying to find his voice amid the band’s intricately layered productions. His spotlight-seizing turns here—the Phil Collins-via-In Rainbows pomp of “Never Going Home” and the repetitiously overwrought “I Don’t Blame You”—reek of overcompensation, forsaking the more effective, shadowy presence he presented on the Eyelid Movies highlight “Running From the Cops” for blown-out power balladry.

Since the release of that first album, the indie-pop/R&B crossover zone Phantogram inhabits has become considerably more crowded with mega-hyped breakout acts, and Voices responds accordingly to these higher stakes with a bolder, more assertive approach. But while its standout tracks are strong enough to ensure Phantogram maintains its current altitude, there are a lot of places to turn to for this sort of thing these days, and this album ultimately underwhelms next to the pure-pop punch of Haim, the cutting lyricism of Lorde, or the radiant grandeur of Chvrches. As much as Voices tries to get in your head, it too easily recedes to back of mind.